Yamata no Orochi
by Paskuda
Summary: They found it among the flamed debris in the entrails of the forest. Wrapped up in woolen blankets, there was a snake.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto

 **Summary:** They've found it among the flamed debris in the entrails of the forest. Wrapped up in woolen blankets, there was a snake.

* * *

 **Yamata no Orochi**

 **Prologue**

They were heading west.

The night, chilly and starless, blanketed heavily a vast expanse of the spacious field. Their squad had been en route for two hours already, going at the steady pace, their chakra inforced feet leaving no marks on the thick snowy cover of the frozen grounds.

Kazuki exhaled a cloudlet of the heated air; it clashed visibly against its frigid outward counterpart.

The mission had been an abrupt one. The night patrol reporting on the rapid chakra surge in the northwestern area, the origin unidentified.

The task being plain and simple reconnaissance, Kazuki believed their randomly put together team of chuunin would do the trick quite effortlessly.

Instead the three of them were saddled with Hashimoto Junichi, a thirty two year old jounin, his square jawed face the irretrievably frozen mask of profound aloofness and deep indifference. If Kazuki recalled correctly, the rumors of various degree of credibility circulating among the Konoha shinobi stated the man to be a member of the ANBU. Though one must give that crowd some credit for being quite competent at keeping all the dubious, shady secrets to themselves, in a place like Konoha, full to the brim with bored and nosey shinobi, all that effort was sometimes rather futile.

Be as it may, one does not question orders.

Though one needn't be happy with them either, Kazuki thought grimly.

They were nearing their destination now. There, on the dark horizon, the indistinct patch of the dry winter forest could be seen. The temperature was steadily going down, and Kazuki was recalling with mild longing the warm cosy duty post that had to be forsaken in favor of this midnight pleasure excursion through the wilderness of the Fire Land.

They reached the line of the trees. Going up the branches was of little use now; it would gain them nothing in terms of speed or concealment, their coloured garment taking care of the latter sufficiently well.

Kazuki glanced up towards the night sky, thick murky clouds over their heads just beginning to strew the forest with the fluffy snowflakes, nearly invisible in the dim light. To his right, the blond haired kunoichi named Yoko, the young medic-nin, run with the steady broad strides despite her being rather short statured. A few paces behind them the Hyuuga girl (Kamiko, he recalled the name) was casting lazy idle glances over the surrounding trees. Hashimoto took the lead.

Most of the short time on the road had been spent by the makeshift team in unobtrusive silence, being acquainted with each other too superficially for small talk, even if the mission would allow such a conduct.

In front of them, Hashimoto abruptly lifted his palm up, wordlessly calling a halt, the three chuunin silently gathering around him a few moments later.

Up ahead, from below the small hill they currently stood upon, a faint sound could be heard, quiet but perfectly familiar.

Kazuki knew, even before they set foot upon the hilltop and looked around, that his earlier wish against the bitter cold, directed vaguely to some vacant kami, was suddenly and unexpectedly granted.

Down below, surrounded by the forest and the dark hills, one of which being that their team currently stood upon, a small valley situated, housing an even smaller village.

Or what used to be the small village. Because presently it had taken a form of the huge, grand bonfire, which spread its flames up for several ken high and was steadily consuming what was left of the wooden huts and some unlucky trees happening on its way.

"Keep your guard up," Hashimoto said quietly, looking around the wreckage with impassive, yet sharp eyes. "There are traps all over this place."

Kazuki took a moment to consider why the man seemed to be so confident with this statement, but then quickly dismissed the strange feeling. The time they lived at every self-respecting shinobi (or even, in some cases, civilian, given the right amont of paranoia, reasoned or not) settlement tended to convert the whole surrounding area into a one big booby-trap.

And this place, though might seem to be harmless at first glance, was currently gobbled up by the wildfire, clearly the chakra produced one. The fact was making you wonder what secrets it had to hide to earn such a fate.

Kazuki reasoned with himself that his hesitation was most likely the result of the initial distrust he harboured towards this emotionless, secretive man they were collaborated with by chance and would likely never have to interact with again. So for now, Kazuki would just keep quiet and do his job.

"Split up," Hashimoto was saying presently, "and scout around the perimeter. Send a signal if you notice anything."

But there was nothing for them to notice, the place eerily empty aside from the number of dead and burned bodies littering the ground and residual chakra emination lingering lazily all over the place, and ten minutes later they all gathered up at the previous spot.

"Kamiko, check for any survivors."

This time the request drew the surprised gazes from not only Kazuki, but the other two chuunin as well. Nevertheless, the Hyuuga girl nodded her assent and peered around intently with that quaint eyes of hers.

For a couple of moments no one spoke. Then Kamiko's fine dark brows furrowed slightly.

"I think, there's something..." she drawled out. "Yes. There is a definite presence here, in the underground premises under that building," she pointed out the large structure, probably the main housing from the look of it.

Kamiko had not even finished the sentence, and Hashimoto was already moving towards the burning remnants of the village. Kazuki and Yoko traded glances, and the three of them tacitly followed their taichou.

Navigating their way around the debris, the four of them reached the large structure, the heated air leaving the skin of their faces unpleasantly hot and burning, making it hard to breathe.

Junichi, though, took care of the flames with the quick Suiton jutsu, using the large amount of snow coating the silent forest around them and melting it to extinguish the fire. Its flames carrying only small residual traces of chakra now, the fire quickly dissipated, giving them a clear way in.

They passed the dark, ash covered remnants of rooms and corridors with Kamiko leading the way. More bodies were scattered carelessly around the floor, forcing the four shinobi to watch their steps closely.

At last, they reached the basements.

There, in a pitch black darkness, Kamiko lead them to a heavy door, the only reason the three remaining team members being able to distinguish it in the dark being a large glowing seal, its intricate patterns engraved beautifully upon the wooden surface.

Kazuki absentmindedly noticed the basement being spared from the fire completely (though not from the heat), even with no seals guarding its upper entrence, or at least no seals that he was aware of, for Kazuki was no fuinjutsu specialist.

Junichi, though, seemed to know what he was doing. He took some time studying the sophisticated looking kanji plexus, and as the silent minutes dragged and extended leisurely on, the vague sense of disquietude began to overcome Kazuki's mind. He eyed the idly, pacifically glowing thing, not yet showing any hints of succumbing under the jounin's careful ministrations, and knew with sudden clarity that this all would not bode well.

Here they were, trying to get inside the heavily sealed rooms obviously containing the very same thing that was the manifest reason for this whole place to become the charred embers not even three hours ago. Moreover, the thing was alive. This was way beyond the mission objective.

Next to him, most likely noticing his troubled expression even in this tomb-like darkness, Hyuuga lightly touched Kazuki's right arm to get his attention, then said quietly:

"There's only a child inside."

While Kazuki was trying to fit this new, confusing information into his various theories of tonight's proceedings, the heavy door suddenly gave in and opened with a terrible creaking noise.

As he recalled it afterwards, he had trouble reproducing accurately the several moments that followed after that. For he had only half a second to react and save "only a child", as the little room that came into their view with the door opened instantly replicated the earlier, already familiar scenario.

It flared up.

* * *

Kazuki had just come out of the Hokage tower a few minutes ago after finishing the mission report along with Hashimoto and Hyuuga, while Yoko had taken off to the hospital as soon as they arrived back at the village. It was an early hour of the morning, and he was free to go and finally have some rest.

Instead, he found himself walking through the bright corridors of Konoha's Main Hospital. The clinical whiteness of the interior lighting in these pre-dawn hours was making his tired eyes ache desperately.

He wandered around the empty corridors, hoping to find some nurse and ask where Yoko was. Maybe he should-

There it was. As he rounded the corner, he saw a dark haired woman strolling down the corridor, shifting through some papers.

"Excuse me, have you seen Egawa Yoko? She's just returned from the mission about half an hour ago."

The woman abruptly lifted her head up and looked at him with strange expression on her pale weary face. Then, as if waking up, she blinked once, twice, and answered slowly.

"Uh... Yes. She's still at the A&E, I think."

"Thanks."

As he continued to travel among the blinding whiteness of the hospital maze, now with the set destination, he recalled idly the events of a few previous hours. The skin on his hands and face was still stinging slightly, for his reaction to the fire trap within that underground chamber was not swift enough to prevent some injuries, though otherwise effective in regards of saving all of their bloody lifes.

He hadn't seen the child wrapped up in many layers of the thick blanket, and frankly hadn't wanted to. If Kazuki's skin had been almost burned during that half a second of exposure to the fire, he did not want to see what it had done to that thing, being stationed by someone strategically in the very center of the raging inferno.

Alas, as soon as they were able to set a foot on the red hot basement chamber floor and reach the little creature, it happened to have some really nasty burns on its arms and feet, but that was that.

Yoko had been able to patch the worst wounds up a bit, but not enough to prevent the scarring, and after that they had to hurry and return to the village.

Unbelievably, the child had still been deep in the realm of sleep (as it had been when they first opened the door). Or, with more probability, unconsciousness, he had thought, as the one must undoubtfully be when one's arms were melting.

Kazuki sighed lightly, strolling down the corridors towards the slightly more populated area of the Accident and Emergency department.

There were too much unexplainable things about this whole event. Little ditails that could easily be overseen if one did not look close enough. At first he had thought that the sole survivor of tonight's was their unknown attacker's objective. But why leave it behind after having dealt with the guards? The idea of them being deterred off by the patrol was laughable, those guys hadn't even set foot near the village. Plus, there was no seals constraining the way inside, aside from that on the chamber door, and though it seemed tricky in appearance, it had yielded after mere ten minutes of work, with Hashimoto Junichi being in no way a genius.

But the most disturbing thing of it all was still making his irritated skin hurt. The thought of someone being willing to rather have the thing destroyed than give it up to an enemy was... unsettling. The sheer luck was the reason that it had lived through this.

And now this tiny strange creature would have to stay here, in Konoha.

There would never be any peace in this village.

At last, he reached the A&E area. Sparse amount of nurses, clad neatly in white medical gowns, walked slowly down the corridor and between the wards. Yoko, though, was nowhere in sight. He was just intending to go find some other information source, when his peripheral vision caught something through the open door of the small ward to his left. He turned his head and slowly came to a halt, carefully eyeing its occupant.

He had already seen the sickly looking whiteness of the skin and pointed dark markings of the eyelids, which had appeared black in the darkness of the forest, but now reflected the bright hospital lights with a deep purple sheen.

It appeared to be around two year old. Kazuki didn't know its gender, it was hard to tell with so young a child, especially this one. It sat, motionless, on the hospital bed, enormous in comparison, with its little arms bandaged tightly up to the middle of the humerus, feet wrapped up in a similar fashion.

As he watched mutely, he understood what was so discouraging in the sight in front of him. While a normal, healthy two year old child would now be fidgeting around or crying or doing only a two year old knows what, the creature sat perfectly still. It occupied itself with eyeing indifferently the sterile gauze its miniature hands were swathed with. Then lifted its dark head up and looked him right in the eyes.

That he had not seen yet.

The large, disinterested eyes staring him down were of the vivid, light amber colouring, with the snake-like slit shaped pupils that were now nearly invisible. Kazuki realized with sudden coldness creeping over his tired body that for all the time he was silently watching the creature, it had yet to blink.

Kazuki blinked, severing the eye contact, turned around and left the hospital. He really needed to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The Sun.

A gigantic, enormous, chaotic formation that hunted the human minds with its beauty and divine immutability from the the beginning of time.

The golden deity, Amaterasu, the great goddess born from the left eye of Izanagi's at the Woto river.

The ancient, symbiotic system, the perfectly balanced correlation of hydrogen and helium that was fueling its monolithic existence through time; that with time would lead to its imminent destruction.

The nuclear fusion of two elements, with tenacious permanence converting one into another and burning, burning with the white hot light that would travel faster than the lightning through million ri of dead, empty space to fall gently on his face.

He slowly inhaled the fresh autumn air and leisurely opened his misty eyes. In times like these he was grateful for the thin transparent pellicle protecting his amber coloured eyes and allowing him to watch the great burning system for much longer then a few seconds that any normal human would have to go with.

Though, times like these were sparse in the past.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, those few early years spent in that morbid orphanage flew swiftly through his consciousness and were quickly forgotten. Now was not the time for pathetic fits of self-pity, nor it was ever. He had gotten over it a long time ago.

He relaxed contently, lowering his head back against the soft cushion. He had just returned from the two weeks long mission yesterday night, and was fully intended on spending this warm sunny afternoon, most likely one of the last in this year with it being mid-october, in a peaceful meditating state.

Though not the chakra networks reconstruction type of meditation, for it required the perfect clearance of a mind from all the thoughts that were flooding currently through his head.

His frivolous variation of meditation only requested the relative stillness of the body, while his mind raced swiftly, wild and rapid, until it sorted through all its mazy webs and tangles, bestowing him in the end its repose and tranquillity.

He lowered his eyes from the blue brightness of the sky and casted a slow gaze around the small garden he was currently situated at. The high, thick foliage of the trees was mirrored by the small pond's calm water, occasional little ripples distorting the image and making the fallen leaves quiver against the cyan reflection.

There was a small wooden island surrounded by peaceful water. It was connected with the house porch by the narrow stonework passageway.

The island being the only place free of the thick shadows of the garden, it accommodated its sole visitor with steadily frequency.

The visitor blinked once due to ingrained from the early age obtrusive habit. His mission report was waiting for him still, and it would for quite some time, as he could not pass up the opportunity to get on the man's nerves that easily.

He had a work to do, anyway.

His dreamy reveries were suddenly interrupted as the screen doors leading out onto the dark wooden porch were gradually opened.

Without lifting his head up he looked at the lithe figure that had emerged slowly from the shaded insides of the house and presently stepped out, barefooted, on the warm timber surface. It carried the dark, heavily looking tray in its bony, slender hands, containing the two equally black cups as well as the teakettle.

He noticed with mild amusement that the thing had already rummaged through his wardrobe and clad itself into the fine beige kimono with the beautiful crimson ornamentation.

He himself was still wearing the plain dark yukata he had dug up in the morning, in hopes of catching the last strays of alienated autumn sun heat with its thick black material. He didn't like the colour as much as his usual clothes choices would suggest, but one must make some sacrifices in his life if only to survive in this bitterly freezing climate.

If he were to thought of it, he kept his pitch black hair long for this very same reason, though he would be damned if he ever told Jiraiya about it, despite the whole bunch of utter ridiculousness the imbecile concocted through the years as his supposed motivation. He would never hear the end of it.

The thin beige figure meanwhile proceeded with stepping lightly through the narrow stony passage, absentmindedly eyeing the heavy tray it kept balanced easily in one hand.

"I hope you know you will not get a tan," the creature suddenly delivered along with the discreet little smirk.

He watched, unimpressed, as the thing lowered itself gracefully right onto the warm wooden flooring, not bothering with the soft cushion laying nearby. It lifted the small kettle up and poured what had to be the strong green gyokuro tea into the cups, the long dark hair falling over its shoulder and half obscuring from view the surreal pattern of reflections the swaying water gave to its pale, serene face.

He shifted his gaze up, to the bright steady constancy above his head. Were he any less practical a person, he would have happily research it for all his life. A bizarre conjunction of creation and distortion, orderliness and chaos... Was one really capable to exist without the other? Wasn't their interlacing qualities the primary essence of all the things dead and alive?

Alas, now was not the time for this; he had to halt those useless cogitations and return to his work. And maybe make some unpleasant visits later... He wondered if—

"You should drop these useless cogitations and return to your work."

Orochimaru looked down at his companion, then lifted himself up slowly and took the offered teacup.

The clone was eyeing him thoughtfully. Being unable to consume any food or liquid itself, it just sat there, treading the warm cup with its long scarred fingers, silly thing that it was.

Though it gave Orochimaru some not very gratifying ideas.

Usually, his clones were calm and collected, and to see one fidgeting like this was a clear sign of Orochimaru's own inward agitation.

Clearly meditation would be of little use today.

"If I recall correctly, you have your own task on hands. You were not made for a small talk."

The double just stared at him, impassive, though Orochimaru knew his own mimic well enough to know the thing was mildly exasperated.

"I have not found anything yet. You know as well as I do that there is nothing in those scrolls that we do not already know about."

True, Orochimaru thought, amused. Were it that easily, he doubted he would ever end up in this situation in the first place. A good challenge had always baited him as a big fat mouse baited a snake.

"It may give us a new perspective to look from, though."

The clone nodded in agreement and turned its head to the side, watching the surrounding greenery.

As a child, Orochimaru had always thought of the kage bunshin as a pretty much worthless technique, but with time he had found it relatively amusing.

The entity consisted purely of the concentrated chakra conglomeration, perfectly replicating the creator's constitution, and as a result his own thoughts and ideas. But it hadn't had its own chakra resources, thus rendering it near to useless in a battle, with the exception of being a cannon fodder.

Of course, it still could use taijutsu well enough, but the smallest contained injury was enough to shatter the fragile chakra balance of its system, for it had not had the resources to deal with the "healing".

Despite the detailed descriptions and explanations of the technique principles written in the dusty scrolls they were fed with at the Ninja Academy, little Orochimaru felt the need to examine its molecular structure himself.

He remembered as he poked and prodded the displeased looking ten year old creature, while it sat on the uncomfortable metal chair in Mamoru-sensei's laboratory and was sending him dark gloomy glances, for he had forbidden the clone to do the analysis by itself.

Being only ten back then, Orochimaru had had only vague, superficial understanding of the quantum mechanics, but what he had saw... awed him.

Every atom, its every small comprising particle was formed from the hundreds of energy clots that moved chaotically, creating the multiple complex formations.

They were glowing.

He had really seen the chakra for the first time back then. The curious clone had gotten its own glimpse eventually as well.

People had always called him a genius, some of them respectively, much more of them reluctantly. But he knew at that moment for it to be a lie, because how could you be a genius when there was this huge amount of knowledge, fathomless and incomprehensible, laying outside of your very understanding.

After that little experiment he had changed his mind about the technique, but not much. Eventually, a couple of years later, Tsunade had commented on him creating the copy for a light taijutsu sparring as a "way too often". Orochimaru's intentions being the simple testing of its capacity limitations, he could not see what kind of grand wrongness Tsunade saw in it. They were sixteen at that time, she had just returned from her three years long tutorage vacation at the Land of Lightning and was simply insufferable.

Most likely she thought that Orochimaru had gone completely mental in her absence and was being busy evolving his antisocial nature on a whole new level.

The truth was, even if he were inclined to do just that, it was nigh impossible. Communication with the clone was like the shogi game; and not even with himself, for he had had plenty of that. It was like playing the shogi with all forty wedge-shaped pieces being of the identical black colour.

Thus Orochimaru used it mostly for research and away from Tsunade's accusing eyes. Like now.

He wondered briefly where was she and what was she doing now.

"It is not our primary concern right now," the clone said absentmindedly. Orochimaru would have rolled his eyes were he into it and were he any less familiar with occurrences of this sort.

He recalled how nearly a decade ago he had entertained himself with the ideas of making the real, genetic copy. It was the process that interested him, he wasn't thinking into the future that much to think of what he would do with the result, silly child he was. He would have had to kill the thing to spare it the misery of being his biological clone. And here people thought him being hard-hearted.

"Of course not," Orochimaru said. The clouds had obscured the sun by that time, and the temperature shift made him shiver slightly. It was then that he felt they were no longer alone.

He smiled lightly. The clone looked up at him with an identical expression on its pale face. Orochimaru knew, even without the chakra resources, it had sensed the foreign presence nearby in the surrounding woods perfectly well.

"They are getting bolder lately," it remarked, amused. "Where are you going to take measures about it?"

"Soon," he answered. It was a problem, but he would deal with it in due time. Now he had to pay his visit, he had delayed it futilely long enough.

He got up leisurely, taking the tea tray with him. The clone soon followed, smoothing out the folds of Orochimaru's kimono.

While Orochimaru went to the kitchen to clean out the cups, it stood in the threshold with its arms crossed on its chest and was looking into the space with detached expression, no doubt shifting mentally through the remaining scrolls and books they had yet to check.

He would gladly send the clone to make a report, instead burrowing himself up in the dusty ancient scrolls till the late evening. But the thing could not disguise itself, nor it could be disguised by anyone.

Thus he told it to keep up the research and went to his bedroom to change his clothing.

They both knew the search to be futile.

* * *

Orochimaru walked down the deserted, bleak street, its dilapidated buildings giving the area a dull, ruefully atmosphere. There was no one in sight, but he still kept his disguise up. He used a simple transformation jutsu to give himself a plain, boring appearance, not worthy of a second glance. He used to do this a lot when he was younger, though now the idiocity had passed and he was even finding it amusing at times to antagonize the villagers with his mere presence.

He came near one of the plain, aged structures at the end of the street and walked swiftly inside. There were no furnishings in it, the interior consisting of shabby grey walls and debris scattered messily around the flooring.

Orochimaru came to a stop near the frayed brick wall at the far end of the hall. He bit his finger and dragged it across the dusty bricks, leaving the dark crimson kanji behind. It immediately came into contact with the hidden sealing, and a second later there was the dark narrow passageway before him, leading deep underground. He stepped onto the stony stairway, dropping down the disguise. There was no need for it here.

The spiral staircase led down to the large underground maze consisted of the grate amount of interlacing passageways, low ceiled and claustrophobic. He walked through it confidently, navigating his way easily among the familiar narrow corridors that eventually led him right to the center of the spider's web.

He knocked at the heavy wooden doors twice and noiselessly walked in.

The large rooms were oddly warm after the chillness of the underground passways. Done in a rich blue colouring, they were mostly darkened now, except for the pitch of a warm yellow light illuminating the large desk at the far end of the room, as well as its current occupant.

"Orochimaru-kun," the deep, low voice sliced the silence of the shaded chamber. "I'm glad you could make it."

Orochimaru bowed his head lightly. "Shimura-sama."

"Please, have a seat," the man said. As Orochimaru walked obediently to the offered chair, he rearranged his thinking with effortless familiarity, leaving only a carefully constructed artificial carcass on the surface, consisted of thoughts and feelings, true and false alike, that would become his own in this very moment, with this company.

Emotions, though... Emotions had to go completely.

He sat down. The man lifted his head up from the papers he was working on and looked at him closely.

"You came back earlier than I expected," he said. "Does this mean our friends were that happy to see you?"

"Indeed so, Shimura-sama," Orochimaru answered. He took the scroll containing the mission report out of his pouch and placed it carefully upon the desk.

He indeed had not stayed in the Land of the Sky a second longer than was absolutely necessary. The mission itself was a relatively simple one, as it happened to not require any drastic or violent measures on a part where he was directly involved.

His task postulated for him to convince a couple of the Sora Daimyō's counsellors that certain Kazuo Yoshida was the best choice for the next Kage of the Sky's Hidden Village, which had been literally in ruins after the war had ended. A fairly simple job when dealing with men depraved enough to be intimidated or gready enough to be bribed.

Danzō's man could already consider himself the new Kage.

"You have done well, Orochimaru-kun" the man said after looking over the scroll. Danzō than put it aside and cast him a probing, carefully inquisitory glance, but Orochimaru remained composed and perfectly emotionless, his thoughts occupied by musing vaguely upon the benefits his village would undoubtfully get from such circumstances in the nearest future.

Danzō, apparently satisfied, promptly dismissed him after that. The man seemed strangely absentminded today; most likely something else occupied his thinking, the state Orochimaru could currently relate with. He was glad the old man had not charged him with yet another prolonged mission as he had taken to be doing lately with bizarre and irritating frequency.

Orochimaru made a quick stop at the jounin station to drop by the report of his supposed mission that served as his cover, and headed back home. He was glad the exchange was a swift one, he did not have a patience for the man's preaches at the moment.

He entered the quiet house, his feet making no sound as he walked through the silent rooms, which were presently clone-free, he noticed, satisfied; the copy was most likely already busying itself at the laboratory downstairs; forsaken aged books and scrolls lay in disarray all over his living room flooring.

He carefully navigated his way through the paper chaos and entered his darkened bathroom. The mirror looked back at him with the slited amber eyes which were narrowed thoughtfully.

Than he opened his mouth and eyed the very thing that had kept his mind occupied for a long time now.

There, at the back of his tounge, interwined with striking precision, were the black bands of the seal. He eyed it with mild, squeamish interest.

"It will not be long now, darling," he purred at it softly and left the room, noiseless.


	3. Chapter 3

He never knew where he came from.

Orphans there were never a rare thing. It was so common, it stopped being a bitter tragedy long ago, if it had ever been one; instead it was perceived by a majority as an unfortunate, but overall integral aspect of existence. And, in the display of amusing irony, it was done so not as much by the adults, but by the children themselves.

The clan kids had that the easiest way. One had to try really hard to leave another of that kind a complete orphan. The task, though time consuming, was doable, as was confirmed by the history many times before and will surely be done so in the future. Kami only knew how many bloodlines were forever lost to the perennial, animalistic struggle for power and control.

What a waste.

Occurrences like that, though, were rare nonetheless. More ubiquitous was a relative or two before some unsuccessful mission happened. Such children had a year or two to be coddled over, and then had names and faces that they would carry through as long as they choose or dare.

As it happened, he had no name and no face.

The others had surely taken it upon themselves to remind him of the fact.

He had not been at the shelter for very long. Those four years though, before he became a genin and had been able to earn his own money, had seemed like endless, perpetually frozen void to him, as does everything when you are a small, impressionable child. Until that time everything Orochimaru owned wasn't really his. Even the name, which was apparently given to him by some over-compassionate nurse, brave enough to come near him, when he was already two years old. And what an observant nurse it was.

Orochimaru never did like to think about his tenebrous, tender years as a child. Those useless, worm-like reminiscences were not usually getting their way into his head if he had any say in that, for he might be called a genius, but he had never possessed an eidetic memory. Lately though, frustrating as it was, Orochimaru had found himself wandering into those dim, murky waters with disturbing frequency, while they were better left untouched.

After all, one never knew what may live in deep waters.

Oh, what he would not give to know exactly what lived there.

For all of Orochimaru's twenty four years of life his curiosity had always had the better of him in the end. If he were to think of it, half of all the problems in his life had been a result of this innate inquisitiveness, as well as almost all of the mirth. And now he had a heinous seal nestling in his mouth for an evidence.

There was no sentimentality lost between him and his supposedly dead and lost ancestors. And while the other kids worked so hard to install the doctrine of him being the other, someone who diverges with the baseline human characterization, he was exactly the same, at least in that regard.

He didn't know what exactly he wanted to find. He examined and scrutinized every possible bloodline that would more or less fit those distinct, offbeat features of his. For surely there should be at least something, little Orochimaru thought, silly child that he was.

Except, there was nothing.

The fact, discouraging in its nature, delighted him to no end.

Orochimaru made his way through the mess in his living room with light steps, heading towards the heavy wooden door which led to the basements. As much as he was longing to enjoy the last warm days and stay outside instead of the underground chill of the laboratory, he had a rare free time on his hands, occurrence that required unfortunate priority.

He made a quick stop at his bedroom, shifting through the wardrobe for a few moments, then fishing out a heavy, black haori, which he wrapped around his body right away, its thick, dense material a pleasant, warm weight on his shoulders.

He pulled his hair out from under the clothing, descending down the metalic spiral staircase that led underground. Immidiately he felt the temperature dropping a couple of degrees down.

He walked down the narrow, dimly lighted corridor, reminding himself to check how the snake was faring in such an unpleasant environment. It temporary occupied a large chalk of his lab and was an active participant in their experiment. Normally he did not offend his pets with such mundane things as terrariums, and they were happily spending their time in the lovely pond outside. But the situation at hand required such barbaric measures.

He entered the silent lab, intended on finally moving forward with his little rebellious project. It suddenly came to him how he missed the quiet, peaceful place and all these gently humming machines. If Danzō were to tax him with yet another mission-

"Are we going on another mission?" the clone's soft inquiry put an abrupt halt to his musings.

Maybe not that peaceful.

"No." Orochimaru said, turning towards the creature that was perched up on the metallic chair near the microscope and paying it no heed while regarding Orochimaru closely.

"How odd," it said, apparently losing interest in him and turning back to look through the lenses. "I was beginning to wonder if all of his dolls have deserted him..."

Orochimaru hummed. "Well, I would surely like to watch them acquiring such a feat," he said, walking slowly towards the huge terrarium situated near the furthest wall. "It seems the old man was otherwise preoccupied. Not a spare word."

The copy huffed, amused. "Were you dissapointed? I do not doubt it."

Orochimaru paid it no heed as he eyed the beautiful specimen of the gaboon viper he had chosen for his little experiment. The creature's impressive bulk was embellished with a series of dark green and yellow rhomboidal markings interspacing with the pale white scales on its huge body. The creature's large, triangular shaped head harboured a pair of black, almost bluish lines that framed the snake's yellow eyes and were almost like his own, he noticed merrily. The thing was huge for a viper, its great length would easily match Orochimaru's own height. The curved, venomous fangs were as long as his pinkie. He was incredibly lucky to acquire such a beauty.

He lowered his hands down inside the transparent glass cage and pulled the heavy reptile out, letting it coil around his neck in lazy, loose circles. Despite its menacing appearance and highly dangerous venom, it was hardly aggressive, and overall was as humble as an Uchiha's cat, though even if it wasn't, he would have easily tamed the scaled little monster. For some unexplainable reason the creepers had always harbored various levels of kinship feeling towards him, which used to create many problems for his teammates back at their genin days.

He was positive Jiraiya's snake phobia had blossomed exactly at that time, though the man always denied anything of that sort. He had even gifted Orochimaru with a lovely rice paddy water snake once, presumably with that exact same purpose, when they were fourteen. He had dragged it in the holey little box all the way from Kirigakure itself, but Orochimaru was never fooled.

"I am done with this batch," the clone said, looking over its shoulder at Orochimaru. He came up to the machines and looked down the monitor at the long, neat lines containing the four basic kanji that steadily repeated themselves over and over in a countless number of variations and forms, creating the original cipher, the informative essence of all the things alive. Meanwhile, the clone continued:

"If we work at this pace, we will finish with the whole genome sequencing in about a week."

"If we are given two weeks, that is," Orochimaru grumbled. "We would not need the whole genome, though. Leave it. I will continue from here."

The clone fed him an amused glance. "Do not trust yourself, do you?"

"I will, as soon as you are back inside my skull."

"Then why am I still here?"

Orochimaru scowled. "Indeed. I can make a dispelling seal or I can stab your guts with my sword. What do you prefer?"

"Oh my. When we decided to thwart Danzo's plans to transform us into the stale puppet dolls, I did not expect it to work that well. What has riled you up so badly? This is pathetic."

"Go make yourself useful elsewhere and buy us some food."

"Buy you some food."

"Yes, just that."

The creature huffed, but got up gracefully from its chair. "Give Chihiro to me, we would not need her here anymore. I have taken enough samples."

Orochimaru reluctantly gave the beautiful reptile up, Chihiro hissing softly, displeased at having been moved. The clone took the snake carefully under its pale white belly and finally turned to leave, rubbing small patterns across the creature's head.

With the laboratory now being blessingly quiet, Orochimaru moved to the spot previously occupied by his wayward double. The familiar, steady hum of the hardware was soothing him and clearing his senses.

He studied the results thoroughly. It was hardly the first batch they had decoded, and would hardly be the last one either. The genetics had always been the captivating object of his interest. As a child, he spent innumerable hours admiring the utter logical perfection of the thing, its unwavering stability, trying to understand how it developed itself.

And now he was preparing to disrupt its stability. He could not wait to do that.

He was prepared to take risks. And there would undoubtedly be the risk, a great one at that, even with all of his checking and rechecking the results thoroughly countless of times before. In some ideal, utopian situation it would be prudent to test this somewhat mental plan on some unfortunate human being first, before even thinking of doing it to himself. But even with his sense of morality being fairly questionable, he was in his right mind enough to understand that all the benefits of this escapade were clearly exceeded by disadvantages he will surely have on his hands at the end of the day.

He would rather not go missing-nin just now. Even with the idea being in some way beguiling, it was once more taxed with the same pros and cons that for him seemed slightly disproportional as of yet. He was not so sure about the future though.

It was useless to think of it now, anyhow. He was rather comfortable in the village, and most of the time not bothered by anyone. He could do with the compromises.

He recollected suddenly that he was getting short of rats he kept in his lab for tests. He could never deny Chihiro some extra indulging here and there.

He ended up fumbling with the samples till the late evening. The clone had showed itself once to inform Orochimaru about some onsen tamago that was waiting for him upstairs, but he paid it no heed. His body had never required any stable food consuming patterns and could easily go without any meal for days on end.

And now, with his mind so delightfully occupied, he could very well survive on excitement and curiosity alone.

x

Konoha at sunrise was deceptively calm and peaceful place. Were he any less paranoiac and any less a ninja, he could have genuinely enjoyed the slow, liquid quietness that seemed to flood your awakening senses with gentle certainty. The air was fresh and clear, the rising sun had already dealt with the remnants of the morning fog.

Orochimaru inhaled the chilly air deeply, turning his head over to the heat with his amber eyes closed. He came upstairs from the lab just now, having spent all night sequencing and decoding the endless helixes of Chihiro's deoxyribonucleic acid.

While the human genome contained forty six chromosomes, the snake's cell held from seventy four up to seventy eight structures inside. But, luckily for him, the number of active genes in both cases varied only slightly.

But the closer he was to completion of the genome sequencing and isolation of those certain genes he needed, the clearer became a problem of the transfusion. Something that delicate and fragile required the same fine execution.

It was detestable feeling to be unsure. Maybe he should change perspective of the question slightly.

Or maybe he should get some advice.

Orochimaru wrapped the heavy material of the haori up around his shoulders. Yesterday was warm and sunny, but today the its heat seemed to be unable to reach the earth. He turned around and went into the house, intended on finally having some of the food the clone had procured.

Chihiro lay curled up in his favorite chair in the living room. As he silently walked by, the huge reptile shifted slightly in its slumber, as if sensing somehow Orochimaru's presence.

Ten minutes later saw him strolling down the busy street at the very centre of Konoha. He had never been able to understand the man's peculiar fancy to live among such a beehive. It was going against each and every trait of his sensei's deranged personality.

The man was not the native Konoha's citizen, just like Orochimaru himself. He appeared in the village around the time when Orochimaru had made it genin, or some time shortly after. He had never shared any details about his past with him or, as Orochimaru was sure of, anybody else.

He smirked lightly as he recalled how he had pestered the man for weeks on end to take Orochimaru as his apprentice. The first time the nine year old child had cornered him and categorized adamantly their predicament, the man had looked at him as if there was a batch of vipers growing out of Orochimaru's head. He then turned around and strode away without a word uttered. Which had not discouraged little Orochimaru in the slightest, as it was pretty much standard and anticipated reaction of any sane adult at that time.

Orochimaru had been trailing him for a better part of the month after that, trying his best to look like a lost puppy, which for him as a near-chunin had never caused any problem.

At last the man broke and resigned, however grudgingly. He even let Orochimaru inside his private lab, with the strictest order not to touch anything without his direct permission, and putting everything back at the exact same place he took it from afterwards. Orochimaru could go with that.

He came up to the plain, grey-painted house, shaded with the low maples that were beginning to lose their green summer colouring and were turning bright yellow or crimson here and there.

He gave the front door two short knocks with the knuckle of his index finger and pushed it open without waiting for an answer. He walked down the narrow hall, heading to the small living room.

As always, the house was a hopeless mess, completely cluttered with all sort of junk imaginable, as if the man was stashing here every little thing he had collected through all of his fifty three years of life. And, most amazingly of all, there seemed to be some secret, incomprehensible order in all the chaos and devastation, known only by Mamoru-sensei himself. Orochimaru had learned his lesson early on and always knew better than to touch, or, kami forbid, move anything here.

He wrinkled his nose up, surveying in distaste the piles of various content littering every horizontal surface of the room. His eye caught a thick, heavy book lying there on top of the pile to his right. He had just turned his head slightly to read its faded title, when he heard the low, amused voice behind him.

"Orochimaru. Has some rat of yours grew the third pair of limbs again?"

Orochimaru pursed his lips, turning towards the voice owner. Mamoru-sensei's bulky self stood there leaning onto the door frame, nursing the green cup in his hands and surveying Orochimaru through half closed eyes. Orochimaru crossed his arms on his chest. "I have told you, sensei. The effect was in every way anticipated."

"Sure it was," the man answered easily. He then turned around and went further into the hall, throwing the quick 'come here' over his shoulder. Orochimaru followed him into the kitchen, the only place that seemed to be relatively unscathed by the man's hoarding insanity.

The man took the kettle and poured the contents into another mismatched cup. He put it onto the table and turned towards Orochimaru. "To what do I own the pleasure?"

He took the cup carefully and walked slowly towards the kitchen windows, looking out at the unkept garden. "Does one require to have a special occasion for visiting his sensei?"

"One of your kind? I would say it's a damn possibility. You've seemed to forget your way here ever since the war ended."

"I was busy."

"And so was I. It was a great relief to finally be able to work without someone breathing down my neck, I must tell you. So get on with whatever it is that is bothering you and then get the hell out of here."

Orochimaru smiled and felt himself relaxing slowly. He had been thinking how better to approach the subject without causing any unnecessary suspicion. The man provided him with a decent idea himself.

"I have been thinking... Snakes had lost the genes responsible for limb development a long time ago as the result of some random mutation. If one were to, say... restore that gene, with one of a different specie... How better to proceed with the procedure?"

"Child." Mamoru gave him a condescending look. "Those pets of yours are fast enough without any fucking legs, that's for sure."

Orochimaru went on thoughtfully, undisturbed. "It can be achieved with the chakra induced flux and t-"

"Forget it." Mamoru-sensei's answer came momentarily, cutting him of. "That kind of thing requires near to damn perfect chakra control, you don't have it even in your dreams."

Orochimaru exhaled sharply, quietly. He was well aware of the fact, and deep down knew it to be bad idea. But the problem was, the only other relatively realistic option he had come up with was even more batty.

He decided to drop the subject, were his sensei to become suspicious. Apparently, right on time, because-

"Where has this come from, anyway?" Mamoru-sensei went on without waiting for him to answer. "I always thought you adored that sleazy bastards. Have you come short of the rats? I can help with that."

Orochimaru sipped the strong, almost harsh tasting tea, looking at the tree branches that were swaying slowly in the breeze.

"I was just curious, sensei."


End file.
